Tunnel timeline mind maps can be called in another name “planning mind maps”. This type of mind map is used to visualize the outcomes of projects, strategies, and program plans or solve a problem. Therefore, the outcome is placed in the center as a main topic and the branches around tend to present a path to achieve this outcome. The mind map might be a picture of success if the users follow the actions on the path. The key benefit of this type of mind map is the continuity of keeping the eyes on what to do and where to go to reach the expected target because the visualizing plan can remind the focused objective when the users get the obstacles or changing direction. In order to make a tunnel timeline mind map, the desired outcome should be placed at the center to help the users stay focused on the achievement. Each
objective (Duffill, 2004, p. 1).The figure 2.2.3 below is a model of a tunnel timeline mind map.
Figure 2.2.3: Model of a tunnel timeline mind map (Edraw, 2017) 2.3. Advantages of mind mapping in reading comprehension lessons
Obviously, it can be said that mind mapping asserts its important role in language learning as an effective technique to enhance language skills, especially reading skill because it produces some considerable benefits in reading comprehension lessons.
Firstly, mind-mapping can help students brainstorm their ideas easily and logically because they can capture and group their ideas as these ideas are suggested
“without worrying about where they fit in a hierarchy” (Fiktorius, 2013, p. 14). It can be seen that mind maps are more effective and convenient than a traditional outline.
Therefore, it is suitable for the pre-reading activities in which brainstorming is considered as the most useful one. Moreover, Murley (2007) explains that the radiating design of a mind-map which arranges the main topic or idea central, with all its major subtopics close to it makes relationships and connections easier to observe and keep the eyes. This gives students chances of generating new information of the reading texts in less time.
Secondly, mind mapping can enhance students’ motivation in learning reading comprehension because its flexibility can encourage students’ creativity. According to Mento, Martinelli and Jones (1999), it is a technique which builds up creativity and promotes individuals’ learning. By using images, symbols, and colors to display and connect all related topics, a mind map can not only trigger students’ creativity but also provide them with a more attractive format that enjoys their eyes or brain.
Zampetakis, Tsironis and Moustakis (2007) assert mind maps “allow creativity development to be introduced into the curriculum in a way that made best use of the time available”(p. 376).
Thirdly, when the key information of the reading text is drawn on mind maps, it becomes easier for students to understand and remember because mind maps typically use color and images (Murley, 2007). Anglin, Hossein and Cunningham (2004) conducted their research to assert that our ability to remember images is far better than our memory for words. In addition, Johnson (1992) states color improves comprehension by 73%. Therefore, students can save time and increase their productivity of the reading text thanks to mind maps. Toi (2009) reveals that the
students’ memory of vocabulary of a reading passage increases in the Mind Map group with improvements in memory of up to 32%.
Finally, students can link their prior knowledge and new information in the reading text, which helps them transfer what they learn and apply it to new situations (Fiktorius, 2013). Al-Jarf (2009) proves mind-mapping technique is a great application for enhancing students’ ability to “generate, visualize and organize ideas”(p. 3). The use of mind mapping enables visual learners to connect and integrate what they knew and what they are going to learn. Moreover, Maureen (2002) adds mind mapping could improve students’ confidence, develop a ‘can-do’ culture in class and motivate students and teachers.
From the illustrated advantages above, it can be concluded that mind mapping is a helpful tool for improving students’ reading comprehension ability.
2.4. Stages to use mind mapping in teaching reading comprehension 2.4.1. Pre-reading stage
Chastain (1988) states that pre-reading stage is the process of skimming the reading texts before carefully reading them so as to motivate students to have the interest to read and to prepare them for reading it. Ringler and Weber (1984) consider pre-reading as activities because they provide students with prior knowledge and necessary background, and focus their attention on comprehending the text. Therefore, teachers tend to equip their students with knowledge of vocabulary and grammar to help them be ready to read the text. In such an approach, the main pre-reading activities might be word lists to explain the meaning of the new words or some
syntactic explanation to clarify the essential structures in the text. However, more recently attention on pre-reading activities has changed to cultural or conceptual difficulties. This means pre-reading activities may also advise students what they know and think in order to activate their existing schematic knowledge. The purpose of helping students to link their background knowledge with concepts in the text is to set up appropriate expectations about the language and content of the passage (Ajideh, 2003).
To meet the pre-reading purpose, one very popular kind of pre-reading task is brain storming (Wallace, 1992). Brainstorming is the form of providing students with a particular key word, a concept or a topic. Then, the students are expected to personally give the words, concepts or ideas to bring their own prior knowledge and opinions which associate with that provided issue (Alhaisoni, 2012). This kind of activity seems to resemble what has been known about mind mapping. Al-Jarf (2009) did a research study to prove that the great tool of brainstorming and planning a paragraph is mind mapping. A mind map can be drawn to gather all the ideas about the provided concept and organize them into a pattern which presents the connection between the ideas. It becomes easier for students to see the whole picture of a topic as well as the details that build this picture.
Steele (2016) suggests a pre-reading activity using mind mapping to brainstorm the ideas about “reasons of smoking”.
Figure 2.4.1: Model of mind mapping using in pre-reading stage (Steele, 2016) Firstly, it is necessary to clearly write the key words “reasons of smoking” in the center of the board. Then, students are encouraged to silently think about it and note down for two minutes. Next, they compare and discuss their ideas in groups. The language problems can be ignored; this means L1 might be used if the students cannot manage with their L2. In the next stage, they organize a mind map by making connections or subgroups, adding branches and other points that stem from the central topic. Finally, it is important for the teacher to orally gather the students’ ideas so as to make up a model mind map about “reasons of smoking” on the board. This can help them keep track of the big picture of key topic and activate their prior knowledge before reading the text.
In short, it can be concluded that mind mapping is an appropriate activity to use in the pre-reading stage in order to activate students’ background knowledge and engaging them into the reading text.
2.4.2. While-reading stage
While-reading stage involves in the activities making sense of the text and connections.“The aim of while-reading stage is to develop students’ ability in tackling texts by developing their linguistic and schematic knowledge” (Alyousef, 2006, p.69).
Abbott (1985, pp.96-101) indicates five activities that should be used in while-reading stage. The first one is identifying the main idea with skimming as the main technique because the purpose of this activity is to avoid the slow reading for the details. Thus, the students are required to identify the topic sentence or key word in each paragraph to quickly understand the text. The second activity is finding details in the text using a scanning technique. The useful exercise for this type is usually information gap. This means that students must fill in the missing information on the worksheet by carefully reading through the text. The third one is following a sequence. This activity expects students to realize that what they are reading is in sequence which they can understand even they encounter unknown words. The fourth activity is inferring from the text because students need to clarify what is implied in the reading text by trying to understand the text using their schemata and experience instead of reading for literal meaning. This can be considered as the higher level of comprehension. The last one is recognizing the writer’s purpose and attitude. This can be difficult to understand the writer’s intention behind the words; hence, it is suitable for the advanced learners.
Mind mapping can be used as a helpful tool to achieve some of the activities mentioned above. Using key words only in mind mapping provides students with the benefits of identifying and understanding the structure of a subject when reading a text (Bekti, 2009). In addition, mind mapping encourages students to use prior knowledge to make connections between the reading and what they have experienced, what they have read, or what they know about the world. This offers the advantage in inferring from the text (Siriphanich, 2010). Ramchand (2016) claims that mind mapping can be adapted as fill-in-the-blank activity in order to ask students to find details in the text using a scanning technique when exploring a reading topic. She suggests a while- reading activity with fill-in-the-blank mind map including three basic steps: 1) create a mind map then remove about one third of the concept labels; 2) provide students with small set of concept labels (about five to ten); 3) invite students to construct a mind map using these labels based on their understanding of topic.
2.4.3. Post-reading stage
Post-reading activities are the strategies which provide students a way to summarize, reflect, and question what they have just read. The main purpose of post- reading is checking students’ accurate comprehension of the reading text. Among the techniques used to deal with post-reading, summarizing was considered as one of the most effective one because it can produce a text from one or more texts which consist of the significant information of the original texts and it is much shorter than the original ones (Hovy, 2003). Marzano, Pickering and Pollock (2001) state that summarizing is the top nine most effective teaching strategies in the history of education and it is a great technique to improve reading comprehension because it can
help the students remember the organization of the reading texts after reading (Smolkin& Donovan, 2002).
There are a number of techniques used to summarize a reading text including note-taking, outlining, paraphrasing, and repetitive reading, in which mind mapping is admitted to be one of the most successful techniques because that mind maps are more visual and effective in showing the associations between key words makes the learners easier to recall reading texts than linear notes (Russell, 2011). Mind mapping contains a lot of advantages in post-reading activities, especially summarizing text. Firstly, mind mapping can help students improve their memory when summarizing the reading texts (Fulford&Buzan, 2009, p. 20). These authors conclude that “a well-made mind map is almost impossible to forget” because the ingredients of mind mapping including colors, images and key words can effectively engage the brain. Secondly, saving space is another advantage of using mind mapping in summarizing texts.
Fulford and Buzan (2009) assert that mind mapping allows students to present a lot of information in a relatively small space. Students can store all their notes about the text on a paper and arrange them in an easy way to see the relationships between them. As a result, a whole picture of the reading text is drawn on a paper so that students can keep their eyes and represent understanding in it in post-reading stage (Siriphanich, 2010, p. 5).
In a nutshell, using mind mapping for the post-reading stage can give students chances to recall the knowledge from the text as well as summarize the text in the visual way. Obviously, mind mapping is an appropriate technique for post-reading.
2.5. Mind-map features and how to make a mind map 2.5.1. Mind-map features
It is obvious that grasping the features of a mind map enables users to create an effective and useful mind map. Thus, Buzan (1993) concludes that there are five essential features a mind map which need to fulfill as follows: 1) the main idea, subject or focus is crystallized in a central image; 2) The main theme radiates from the central image as ‘branches’; 3) The branches comprise a key images or key word drawn or printed on its associated line; 4) Topic of less importance is represented as
‘twigs’ of the relevant branches; and 5) The branches from a connected nodal structure.
However, after summarizing the features of a mind map from many studies, Fiktorius (2013) finds out that there are four main features of a mind-map. Firstly,
“each mind-map has a central node that serves as a starting location containing the main theme or idea” (p. 3). It is better to present the central node by an image or a picture relating the main topic because the image or picture can be easily received by our brain more than words or letters. Secondly, “the ideas of the mind-map
‘radiate’ from the central node as branches with sub nodes connected to each other in parent-child relationships” (p. 3). Depending on the purposes and the emphasis of the ideas on the branches, it might be different to draw the branches in terms of colors, sizes, curves, etc. Thirdly, “the final structure of the mind-map becomes a hierarchy of linked nodes” (p. 3). The clearer are the branches drawn in the map, the more easily is the association between the ideas recognized. Our awareness tends to figure out the connection between the input things; therefore, there will be a picture
which is created in the mind to illustrate that structure. Finally, “each connector or branch has keywords or colorful images associated with them” (p. 4). It is suggested that it must always use images in the map. In addition, the colors used to connect the ideas in the map play an important role in capturing the association. Normally, one color is used for each category in the map and key words are for each branch.
Although the number of features of mind map differs from Buzan to Fiktorius, the nature of mind map looks similar with the central ideas in the main position, the primary themes known as branches connecting the central ideas, and these branches linking together to make an organized structure.
2.5.2. How to make a mind map
Mind maps are hierarchically structured. Ellozy and Mustafa (2010) state that
“... the mind maps are usually highly visual including pictures and colors as well as other visual prompts...” (p. 634). The information of a written text can be mapped out into pictures so that readers might understand the text in a more interesting way.
Hence, to make an effective mind map, it is important to follow the sequences in creating a graphic. Many experts produce the logical procedures step by step to help students make a mind map easily, quickly and successfully.
Rose and Nicholl (1998) recommend eight steps to make a mind map as follows: 1) Start with the topic in the middle of paper; 2) Use keywords; 3) Make the branch from the main topic; 4) Use symbols, colors, words, or pictures mainly in the mind mapping; 5) Make it as interesting as possible; 6) Make it full of colors; 7) Repeat two or three times to make it perfect; 8) Do it by yourself.
However, Potter and Hernacki (1999) point out nine steps to create a mind map. This procedure can be described as follows: 1) Make a circle of main idea in the middle of paper; 2) Make branch from the main idea to make key points. Do not forget to use a color pen to make it; 3) Write the keywords or phrases in every branch and then develop them with details; 4) Give additional symbols and illustrations; 5) Do not forget to use capital letters; 6) Write down the main ideas with the bigger letter; 7) be creative and express it freely; 8) Use the unique form to show the points or ideas; and 9) Do not forget to make it horizontally to make a wider space.
In 2010, the father of mind map – Buzan – produced the following seven laws to create a great mind map which are: 1) Start in the center of landscape page;
2) Use an image or picture for the central idea; 3) Use color throughout; 4) Connect mind branches to the central image; 5) Make braches curve and flow; 6) Use just one key word per-line and notice how the words are the same length as the lines; and7) Use image throughout because the images make the mind map more interesting and therefore memorable.
Although these experts state different steps of making mind map, they share a same focus of the sequence of building a graphic. This is to say making a mind map is creating a picture containing the information taken out from a written text in order to help readers easily understand it in a more interesting way.
2.6. Prior studies on the related topic
This section tries to review some previous studies which closely relate to this study in order to figure out the results of using mind mapping in enhancing reading
comprehension. The first two reviewed studies take the background in other countries while the last two studies have the same context in Vietnam.
The first previous study is the study by Siriphanich about the improvement of reading comprehension by using mind maps in 2010. This study was conducted with one group pre-and-post-test experimental research design at Songkhla Rajabhat University, Thailand. The instruments to collect data are tests, interview and questionnaire. The study found that mind maps have a positive effect on improving the students’ reading comprehension. In addition, most of the students are satisfied with their improvement and they also enjoyed their reading activities.
The second related study is “The effectiveness of using mind mapping in improving students’ reading comprehension of narrative text” by Indrayani (2014).
This study was conducted with two group pre-and-post-test experimental research design including a control and an experimental group at SMA Mathla’ul Huda Parung Panjang, Bogor, Indonesia. The data collection is only through the test. The result of the study shows that the mind mapping technique is effective to use in teaching reading comprehension of narrative text.
The third study is “Using mind mapping techniques to develop Ly Thuong Kiet high school 11th grade students’ reading text summary skills” by Nguyen (2012). This study was a quasi-experimental research study and it was conducted in two intact 11th grade classes at Ly Thuong Kiet high school in Hai Phong. To collect the data, this study used the pretest and posttest for measuring both groups’ reading text summary competence before and after the treatment and the post program questionnaire for getting more feedback from experimental students. The study shows the findings that